Category Archives: First Amendment

First Circuit Creates Exception to Massachusetts Wiretap Statute Based on First Amendment Rights, Allows Citizens and Press to Record Police Activity Without Permission

The First Circuit’s recent opinion in Project Veritas Action Fund v. Rollins, upheld a challenge to the Massachusetts anti-wiretap law, Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, § 99, carving out an exception for certain activity protected by the First Amendment.   The opinion begins:

Massachusetts, like other states concerned about the threat to privacy that commercially available electronic eavesdropping devices pose,… More

Privacy v. Speech? Supreme Court to Weigh in on TCPA Restrictions on Automated Calls

The Supreme Court on May 6, 2020 heard oral argument on a widely-watched First Amendment case that may have broad ramifications for the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and, potentially, government restrictions on telecommunications more broadly.

Originally passed in 1991, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act is enforced by the Federal Communications Commission and contains various restrictions on telemarketing, including the use of auto-dialers (sometimes called “robocallers”).  The FCC has strengthened the law’s restrictions over time and adapted them to newer communications technologies,… More